Long term KF project

[Holy_Diver]

^Now enough about magic. Here are the actual controls...

Bear in mind it will take a while for all of this to fall into place. But it will definitely be done before one of these proposed games is ready to head out the door with my seal of approval. In fact I see my main contribution as facilitating these controls. Its the only part I am willing to take personal responsibility for.

With these controls. Things can be radically simplified usually. Especially if you can't see your body when looking down. But as soon as you can do that things get complicated. And that represents a lot of the complications. Likewise I'll be programming these controls. But for them to work its going to take artists dedicated to churning out the necessary animation data. Verdite recoils at the idea of disembodied limbs, so I expect he will be along to loyally implement everything as new possibilities come into focus. As for myself, I'm pretty impartial either way. I can imagine players and authors preferring disembodied limbs. I mean for whatever reason more big budget games than not seem to go that route. But either way...


Controls overview. Again I won't go into detail. Even if it sounds detailed its not nearly as detailed as it could be.

Core concepts are you play with three buttons. We don't count the menu button. We assume not everyone can deal with four buttons. But we know that five buttons is out of the question. I don't believe in the player having to take their fingers off the buttons. We assume you will be playing with L1, R1, and R2. We ignore L3 and R3. Keyboard players just have to make due as best they can. They are not a priority. That said, all controls start out as keyboard keys.

Only three buttons is a tall order. This is done to be in keeping with SOM, but also like I say, that's as many buttons as you can dedicate your fingers to on a controller. If you have other buttons you can assign items and magic to them, things like that. There are also some extra keys on the keyboard, and some virtual keys that you can map buttons to. You can hold the menu button down to bring up a menu of 10 buttons that you can map to items and magic. You can also assign a button to each item in the menu so you don't even have to pull up the menu. And if you press the Menu+button combo fast enough the menu remains hidden. Tap Menu to bring up the standard menu.


There is a dedicated dashing, jumping, and shield button. Fast turning too. Dashing and Shield aren't on the keyboard. But you don't need to use any of these to access these mechanics. But if you think the controls are too convoluted, you might opt to assign one of these to the 4th button. And move Menu out of the way. Sword magic will use the Shield button regardless of how you assign different magics to different buttons.


Start is pause, which accesses movie features. Select is like Caps Lock. It puts you in dedicated stealth/jogging mode. This is the only way keyboard players can access this kind of movement since they are stuck without analog buttons. There will be a new system menu that you access with the Escape key. It would be the PS button on a PS3 controller.


Every button pulls double duty. You can tap it, or hold it, to different ends. The time it takes to register a hold is how long it takes the gauge to start draining when you dash. Players can adjust this number in the game preferences menu. I recommend between 500 and 1000 milliseconds. SOM uses 750ms. There will be a Speed stat. There will only be three stats. If you are a fast tapper that is one way to increase your Speed stat, and push the time below 500ms. Faster isn't necessarily better.


Things get most complicated when you introduce holsters, scabbards, sheaths, whatever. If you can't see your body or even your arms when not in use the player can just use their imagination. KF will use holstering mechanics. There are 3 passive modes. Meaning you can be in the mode when not pressing any buttons. Excluding things like swimming a climbing ladders. There is also a Guard, or auto mode. You go into guard mode by holding the attack button down for a weapon. Not a shield. In Guard mode you act just like one of SOM's monsters. You can move but you can't dash. Its like a defensive stance in a fighting game. You could play the whole game in this mode if you are not good at fighting. But if you did that there will have to be an alternative way to do it without holding the button down all game. Anyway, Guard mode isn't a passive mode.


Scan Mode

Here your weapons are holstered. The attack buttons don't attack. Instead they scan left and right. Hold to turn your head at a constant speed after a short acceleration (750ms by default) or tap to scan to the next interactive thing around you. It's kind of like picking a lock on target in Dark Souls, except you don't lock on, and you can't fight in this mode. It stops at anything, items, money, monsters, that isn't just a piece of furniture. It turns your neck only. Well halfway during the acceleration your eyes can't go any further, then your neck. If you look all the way behind you your upper body will turn a little bit. Tapping the attack buttons also interacts with things nearby. But Action is used to talk and read.

Edited: everything will probably have to work this way; so regardless of mode. If you attack a door you auto holster and open it instead. Probably you'll have to look down at the ground to pick up items so that you don't accidentally auto holster when you miss a monster because of an item at your feet. I won't get into why this is inevitable here. But for what its worth it is. Just imagine the Attack and Magic buttons as your left and right hands or vice versa (auto holster probably won't go to Scan Mode. It'll just be temporary until you are done doing whatever with your hands. Although it might after running and sneaking on an empty gauge, but not just for picking things up and opening doors)

Also I will go ahead and say that if there is a new noise or something, tap scanning could give priority to the source of the noise. You could tell that something is being singled out by the scan moving more quickly than normal. So even in a dangerous setting Scan Mode can have an advantage in terms of awareness. But where its best is social settings.

Draw Mode

To enter this mode from scan mode you tap the Action button. In this mode you can draw your weapons. Note that you can't accidentally attack an NPC because if you press Action you will talk to them. When you press Action nothing happens visually, but your gauges begin to fill up. In Scan mode your gauges empty out. You can also use magic in this mode by tapping the magic button. Holding pulls up your shield. You can quick draw by tapping attack, and perform a combo, and afterward the weapon goes back in its holster. If you spend too long in Draw Mode you go back to Scan Mode.

Kill Mode (for lack of a better four letter word)

This is really fight or flight mode. To enter this mode you need to permanently draw your weapon. This is the classic KF mode. You could play the whole game in this mode if you want. To permanently draw you enter Guard mode by holding the weapon button and let go. Your gauge will drain while holding, but after a while it will begin to refill. If you release within this window you never really enter Guard mode but your weapon is drawn. If you keep holding you hold your weapon in front of you in Guard (aka. auto) mode. You can still cancel Guard mode with the Action button to never enter this mode. One nice thing about this mode is your walking speed is faster. If at any time you receive combat damage you enter this mode.

Holstering works the same way as drawing. Which works the same way as doing a standing jump. When you holster you go to Scan Mode. Another way to holster is to unequip the weapon you are holding. Eg. if the weapon is assigned to a button.


The reason you may or may not want to enter these modes is Adrenaline. Its a secondary function of the Magic gauge. As adrenaline builds up the gauge loses its colour, and your magic looses its potency, but your Strength and Speed receive bonuses. The Power gauge's secondary function is Stamina. Its primary function is timing. Lower stamina means slower timing. And less power. Increased adrenaline increases stamina, and use of stamina increases adrenaline. As adrenaline increases you can go into a berserker like frenzy, but only if the game incorporates AI mechanics. Where the game does things for you based on Experience and stuff that are too fine to be inputted with a controller. If you don't like the game taking over for you when adrenaline is high you can use the adrenaline to run away and cool off. Likewise its possible to play with the AI to keep control as long as you make decisions that are consistent with the AI. If you don't you will interfere with the AI. So your options are run away, or let it takeover, or try to complement it and risk the kind of accidents that happen when adrenaline takes over. Adrenaline comes down fastest in Scan Mode (ironically ACV has something called Scan Mode, and your energy recharges more quickly in it)


When you tap the Dash button (may or may not be the Action button) you perform a rush. Which is the equivalent of speeding up to a dash and then slowing down. You can move as normal while this is happening. A rush to the side is more like a dodge, and backwards is a back step. If you hold down Dash long enough for the gauge to drain and then let go you jump. When dashing forward there is sneaking and jogging and running gaits. I won't get into how they work. But this stuff was all in the last demo. If your gauge is empty from dashing you won't jump on release unless you are running or sneaking forward. If you don't like auto jumping it can be turned off and you can use a Jump button instead.

To crouch you hold Dash while not pushing any movement buttons. Really all that matters is what you are pressing when the gauge begins to drain. If you release for a period after the gauge begins draining, but before it starts filling back up due to resting, then you do a standing jump. Once crouching you can lean out and let go to jump out of the way of something at the last second or do controlled platform jumping. You can let go for a standing jump after you lean some, as if stretching your legs.


There are also a bunch of mechanics that come from leaning into walls and things. Like climbing and kneeing, tackling (jumping into an opponent) and you can kick and stuff by pressing Action while rushing. There is only one attack except for Guard mode, but the animation changes depending how you are moving. So a sword might do a thrust if you are rushing forward, but a slash if you are moving sideways. Same for kicks.


There are a lot more details. Guard mode does a whole lot. Like bows and arrows, and firing sword magic like a bow. Throwing your weapons. You can wield two weapons, since you have backup weapons like in Shadow Tower, but just based on the last weapon you equipped. You can pass a weapon to your left hand basically. Left hand weapons use Attack for sword magic. As for two handing a weapon. Any weapon with two handed attacks can and will be wielded two handed. But there isn't a button for this. Instead if you holster your shield then you are two handing if one of your arms is not injured. This makes sense because a fighter would want to save their strength whenever possible.

I don't think big shields will be popular. I think the shield will need to be able to fall naturally to your side on a sling. I don't see them being worn on the back like in Dark Souls or lugged around. But I do foresee any object being carried in the left hand without ever going into the inventory. So you could find a large shield and use it to solve a problem, but leave it in the map once you move on. I think the player character would just automatically drop the object when passing over a different coloured grey square as setup in SOM_MAP. Likewise you could pickup a torch, or move a ladder, or anything like that. I think its important to be able to go anywhere, and even rearrange the objects in the map as long as they are not too heavy to move. As far as I know the save files track the position of every object, so this is not so farfetched, or even unlike SOM. That is its just the logical extension of moving objects with events.


I think that pretty much covers the basics. There are also social and roleplaying functions accessed by holding down both buttons in Scan Mode and tapping / holding the directional buttons. Not the dpad, the analog stick. You can adjust your headgear that way too. The fast turning gesture is pressing both sticks in the same direction left/right by modern gaming standards. You can turn incredibly fast. I recommend 3x dashing speed, and fast turn is 2x, so 6x walking speed, and you fast turn at the same speed walking or dashing, though walking accelerates more slowly. You can half turn by turning while rushing.


There are other kinds of leaning and looking gestures. Dropping equipment. Sitting down. Lying down. Crawling. And you should be able to hang off cliffs, shimmy, all that kind of stuff. There are also camera controls which can even be used for play in an advanced mode (where 2 out of 4 buttons control the camera (or 4 out of 4 in Scan Mode) press together for Action) to swivel your upperbody manually. You can also look behind when fleeing just like in Scan Mode once the gauges are empty. Check the link in the last post for more details.


EDITED: It really sounds like a lot when you put it that way. But conceptually its same old King's Field. The main difference is you can hold Magic to pull up a shield. And hold Attack to go into a guard stance. Everything else is just there to make you feel more in control, which really helps you to feel like you are really lost in the game.

[Holy_Diver]

I have been thinking about how to make games more accessible. Both to handicapped people and people who are just not good at them.

I believe SOM is a platform for storytelling first and foremost. And it isn't fair to be unable to finish a story because you can't surmount a challenge.

Anyway, it occurred to me that Scan Mode is a really good idea to help blind people for instance locate things in the environment. You can couple that with a screen reader to tell them what they are looking at.

Also I think jumping can be very difficult to do for some people. So you can scan to find what you are interested in, and then press another virtual button not assigned by default to have the character move to that location. Its like a game where you can click your destination with a mouse and go there, but you can do it with a controller.

I think this combined with auto fighting provided by Guard mode can help people experience the games.

[Holy_Diver]

The four curses of King's Field.

Here is a curse system that's come into its own of late.

Curse magic is performed sitting down. And the magic effects the area around where you are sitting and doesn't follow you after you get back up. There are four curses, for each elementary magic. They are all simultaneously helpful and harmful.

Generally the magic power of the caster determines the strength of the curse. But accessories can be equipped to make the curse less severe. Similarly there are accessories for lifting curses, which reverse the effect of the curse. It may be possible to simply perform the curse in a different but similar fashion to lift the curse. For example you could look down to cast the curse and up to lift the curse or something like that. But accessories could be used to improve the outcome either way.

Curses all bind to items. If you hold something in your hands only that item will be affected, otherwise the entire vicinity. Including any item or bag of items on the ground. And also monsters in the case of the undead.

Speaking of which. One thing curses do is keep the undead dead. Otherwise they will get back up after a short while. You can't make a weapon be the vector for the curse. You either have to cast the curse as magic or keep moving before the undead get back up.

Most undead are of the Earth. So Earth curse works best for them. But depending on where the undead hails from you want to use that kind of magic to keep them down.


Earth curse itself makes things very heavy. Especially the undead. It doesn't effect living things or things not of the earth. You might curse a bag of items if you want it to stay put. Otherwise some fiend or lucky passer by might abscond with it. Similarly if you find a item with this kind of curse, good luck carrying it away.


Water curse poisons things. Including edible stuff, and weapons. Pretty straightforward. Be careful if you find an edible item. It might be poisoned. In its simplest form it would introduce a random chance of poison to a stack of items. Anyway this is a pretty good way to let you use poisonous weapons.


Wind curse makes items a bit lighter. Great for heavy armor lovers. But it conversely makes your inventory heavier including everything not in hand. Especially things of the earth like gold coins. You must travel light and free yourself of want to reap the whirlwind. Thieves are not too fond of this curse. It forces them to choose between the cursed item or dropping their money.... sometimes boys are brought along to carry these things off separately.


Speaking of thievery. It's complicated, but I've been trying to devise a believable system for traveling with equipment in plain sight. So if a weapon can't fit in a backpack it must appear on the character for example. I recently thought about making a coin purse and canteen visible on the player as prime targets for thieves. Like the ubiquitous Steal option in turn based RPGs or yore. Canteens are special to KF I think thanks to its magical healing waters based game play. Crystal Flasks are fun, fun for KF2. But in any other KF I think a crystal canteen would be standard issue. More like the Estus Flask in Dark Souls. Edited: oh yes. The coin purse and canteen would fill up and then the number of bags in your inventory would increase after so many coins for example. So if stolen you'd just lose remainder currently in the purse at your side.



Finally Fire curse addresses just that. It's a classical curse where the cursed item is linked to the holders soul or whatever. Since Fire is linked to the soul. Another prime target for thieves is weapons since they can be easily plucked from their holsters. So a Fire curse ensures the weapon is bound to its owner by Fire. I reckon if anyone ever wants to player a King's Field MMORPG (heaven forbid) this sort of thing would be invaluable to players carrying coveted items. The other interesting thing about this is if you find a weapon on a dead man you know that its possibly cursed in this way. But you won't find out until you equip the item or try it out...

And if it is cursed the curse transfers over to you! If you can only carry so many weapons, including a temporary one for trying out newly picked up items. Then you must either use the cursed item as a temporary weapon, meaning you can't equip anything else. Or if you are traveling with a free weapon slot that will fit the item, you can move the cursed item to that slot. Either way you'll need to lift the curse before you can get it out of your inventory.


Oh and cursed equipment has its affinities shifted towards the curse. So weapon cursed with Fire will have a higher fire rating depending on the power of the curse. But you can't figure that out until you are cursed in the case of Fire. Earth curse makes weapons and equipment heavier. For weapons that can mean a harder hit. And for armor that yields a healing bonus. If you can take the weight. Likewise poison weapons have higher Water ratings, and Wind better Wind ratings. And also keep in mind that the elements have different weights for attack and defense. So Earth cursed armor has better defense qualities, Wind worse defense, and Fire the worst defense, but also the strongest attack.


The shift would also weaken its opposites. Which can be used to advantage also. And some accessories could interact with different aspects of the curses. Like reducing the weight of Earth cursed equipment so its manageable but retaining the other benefits. The same accessory could make Wind curses more severe so that you could not mix and match such equipment. Before an item can be cursed it cannot be already cursed, so its curse must be lifted.

[Holy_Diver]

^It occurred to me that this Curse system bears more than a resemblance to doing the elemental weapon upgrades in Dark Souls, but IMO it works much better, and is much more in keeping with King's Field.

Also speaking of curses. While trying to figure out how to manage weapons on a visible player. I think I stumbled upon the conclusion that a prayer like gesture would work much better for King's Field for casting spells. Especially since all spells would work like "support magic" as described, but mainly because you can do it with your hands full. Also building a magical field, is something that doesn't require hands in any way. My original thought was maybe you concentrate on building a bubble in your hand as a focal point that expands out into a field....

But now it seems much better if you just bring your hands together like a prayer weapons and all, and maybe mutter something under your breath, and that makes a field. Maybe each element could have a sigil that briefly appears beneath you, but otherwise fields are invisible, except where things interact with them. Which is cool in itself, because its like an aura of power that is out of sight.

Regardless the prayer approach is cool, because it looks similar to doing a curse. So esthetically they are not that far apart. The only logical conclusion to come of this is the Shield and Magic button would need to be separate. For King's Field using these magic fields that's no problem at all really, since you set the field up during a moment of safety instead of in the heat of battle. In truth the Magic button could be anywhere on the controller for this kind of magic, you could even have a different spell on each out of the way button.


PS: In trying to show all of the weapons on the player, save for those that can be fit into a backpack. It seems like the most practical thing to do is to have a Back equip slot for Large weapons (too long to wear at the side) that can only be held with both hands. The classical Moonlight sword would probably be such a weapon. Or Dark Souls portrays it as such anyway. But personally I'd prefer the Moonlight sword were a bastard sword. Making it small enough to be worn at the side. I'm not a huge fan of big swords. Plus the Dark Slayer doesn't seem like a sword worn on the back. So to my mind these swords should appear equal in stature. Plus if you have to choose between the Moonlight and a bow that isn't cool.

A spear and a bow or non-collapsible crossbow would also be large weapons. Going to Shield->Back is kind of out of the way. But players could probably figure it out. You can draw these weapons with the Shield button, which makes sense because two hands are required to do so. Large shields are Back equip. Small shields can be used with spears once the spear is drawn. The Weapons will go Weapon->Sidearm->Belt->Boot, with the latter two being knives, or weapons small enough to keep in a backpack. These slots will be filled up automatically with whats in your inventory. Unless you are in an armory or shop, or near a campsite, pack animal or a squire or something your inventory is only as large as what you are carrying. ‎ 

Weapon and sidearm can hold "knives" too. Which you can carry as many as you can weight wise. I think there is going to be a knapsack system too, but its a little early to say. The knapsack is actually your belt, but if you Use it you can go light, dropping your backpack. In that mode the belt is worn diagonally if using a Large weapon...

Technically you can use two Large weapons, since you can tryout the weapon you just picked up as a temporary weapon which must be dropped to do anything more or less. It's kind of like going overweight in Armored Core, shooting off a Large weapon as fast as you can, then dropping it (in fact to do this you'd have to equip the weapon. Drop it on the ground. Equip another weapon. And then pick the dropped weapon back up as a found/trial weapon. So its kind of a trick--and of course from there on out you'd have to keep juggling the extra weapon)

[Holy_Diver]

One thing I've been working on is design documents for a harness system, since KF is traditionally a lone adventurer game. A lot of thought must go into an everyman modular utility belt/outfit to allow for any kind of equipment scenario.

I only mention it because it occurred to me one day that a literal harness would be pretty neat. Not that it must always be worn, though it could be. The bottom can just be kept tucked away with the rest of your inventory. In other words you'd be equipped for literal rock climbing, spelunking, tree climbing, what have you, with just a length a rope to drag along.

And I only mention this. Because one thing I've not been crazy about is just how accessible KF's secret compartments are. It lends itself to blazing along walls banging on the open up button. As nostalgic as that may be. It's really not cool, and it doesn't fit the mood. Plus if you find every secret in a game you are bound to be overpowered, its just too easy to do, and too geared toward the OCD kind of player whose mental illness really shouldn't be taken advantage of by video games.

So what I thought would be cooler is a system where you push up against the wall and move your hands over it looking for a hollow sound and then an open up mechanism. Which may or may not be nearby, and is probably hand sized. This way you won't go looking for a secret panel or door unless you have a good hunch. Plus the secret revealing items would be more valuable.

Now I only mention this, because it occurred to me that this is very much like rock climbing... so we are back at that harness. So the basic idea is you can scale a sheer cliff by looking for handholds like secret door mechanisms. It sounds kind of tedious, but don't forget that SOM has a tile based philosophy. So if you learn where the handholds are on a tile, then if you can recognize the tile, and memorize the pattern, then you already know how to get up it. Plus there could be hints built into the tiles. And hammering spikes too.

Anything can be climbable this way, so you can really deliver a sense of go anywhere freedom to the player. And reward them for thinking in terms of tiles. The message here is tiles are a strength not a weakness, and can even be integrated into game play. Throughout your career you can learn to recognize tiles from games you've already played, and even be rewarded for accepting that games can share common elements, and that can be a good thing. Somehow anyway, we have to get people over this idea that every game must reinvent everything from the atom up. Games are stories. Not showcases of insanity (if a movie needs a motorcycle they don't design and build a motorcycle and every component from scratch, that's insanity... and we enjoy recognizing familiar things like old friends. Why not reward players for being good friends I say )

[Verdite]

"So what I thought would be cooler is a system where you push up against the wall and move your hands over it looking for a hollow sound and then an open up mechanism. Which may or may not be nearby, and is probably hand sized. This way you won't go looking for a secret panel or door unless you have a good hunch. Plus the secret revealing items would be more valuable. "

Like to add to this with a small input, why not let players hit the wall with their fist or weapon for the hollow sound?

[HwitVlf]

The hidden wall traps in KF helped to discourage "mashing the search button"some. I like the idea of sound signifying where to search. ‎  Seems like secret locations will always leak out online so people will just look them up. The best system I've seen so far, in my opinion, is hiding secrets where it takes a certain skill level to get to them - such as the lock picking used in the Krondor series or even a "spot" skill like Arx Fatalis used. SoM can already use both those scenarios by storing extra stats (like a spot skill) in counter slots. You could make something like a "journal" item in inventory that showed "extra skill" stats when used.

[Holy_Diver]

Touche, wall traps are interesting. But they seem a little bit predicated on the idea that people are going to be searching for secret cubbyholes that don't belong to them.

Traps like that would still work. They'd just be more difficult to activate. To me secret doors are at their best when it seems logical that judging by adjoining rooms there is a space between them that is unaccounted for. A good secret room can be seen or at least suspected just by looking at a map. Then it becomes the question of how to access it.

As for those niches in the walls. The tile should just have a telltale difference. But in general the only logical reason to look for such niches is if you have a hint from an NPC or something that such a thing exists. Maybe an X on a map. One good place to expect them might be near doors, if the secret contains a copy of the key. Like that key in KF3 near the poison roundabout tunnel where the guy is searching the wall for the secret he knows is there. That would be more interesting if at the very least you must scan the wall with your hands.

One thing that I think will have to be resisted is the temptation to build games that encourage the player to turn over every nook and cranny. If you are ever going to venture over the entire continent of Elegria. Looking under every rock has to be the last thing on your mind. There's just too much ground to cover. I think we have to somehow get away from this Disney World view of game worlds... everything in miniature if there is going to be depth.

If your world is sufficiently sparse, online game guides are going to be impractical. If you are using a guide the game has already failed you on some level. So I don't think that's a good way to judge progress. A game should be judged on the journey itself at every instant along the way.


PS: As for punching the walls. I don't think that would yield useful sound effects. I imagine knocking on the walls. If you are pressed against a wall the attack buttons won't do the same thing. Even if you are near something like a door an attack will open the door. But if you are out of arms reach you might be able to hit it with your weapon for no good reason. There just aren't enough buttons to go around, and the Action button is not ideal for opening things, because it makes you dash and stuff too. Plus Action should be limited to things not associated with your arms. You can have a separate Event button. But I'd much rather have a useful macro assigned to that button.

[Holy_Diver]

Hey rereading that last bit just gave me an interesting idea...

What if when leaning into a door you knocked on it instead of opening it. Then an NPC could come and let you into their home.

There are going to be behavioral differences for sure in Scan Mode. Probably that would be one of those things that only happens in Scan Mode so that you don't knock on a door while fleeing a monster.

Doors are actually a real challenge. Like I spoke to Verdite about the lack of doors in his village. Mainly because I want people to make doors. But it occurred to me that doors would totally change the tone of the village. It wouldn't be as inviting. Still houses need doors. So I suggested coming up with a way for the doors to be opened when the map is opened. Being able to knock but not being forced to would be the last step in totally bridging that gap. NPCs could even behave differently if you were not invited inside.